Podcast appearances and mentions of sean heath

Sean Heath joins the guys in-studio to preview NBA Finals Game 3, and call out RJ Choppy?

11am hour of The K&C Masterpiece ft. Sean Heath!

This week Sean Heath sat down with Noel B. Salazar, Professor of Anthropology at KU Leuven to discuss the celebration of Anthropology Day(s). Their conversation covered the initiation of world anthropology day by the American Anthropological Association and touched on national celebrations of anthropology day, as well as the potential for a World Anthropologies Days. They also discussed Noel's latest work on emplaced mobilities and mobile places. Noel B. Salazar is Professor in Social and Cultural Anthropology and Founder of the Cultural Mobilities Research (CuMoRe) cluster at KU Leuven. His research interests include anthropologies of mobility and travel, heritage and tourism, discourses and imaginaries of Otherness, world anthropologies, and endurance locomotion. Head over to our website for a full list of links and citations

We're back! We're back from our Semester break and keen to get back into creating the content you know and love. This week, we're joined by Dr Sean Heath! The newest Familiar Stranger. In the first part of this panel, we dive into Sean's work with competitive swimmers in Canada and the United Kingdom. We dive into what immersion is, and how it interplays with our lives today. It was really interesting to hear about how swimmers interact with their body-sense and their fondness for chlorinated water. Next, Ruonan draws attention to the current political instability around the world, paying particular attention to the conflict in Ukraine, the resignation of the Sri Lankan Prime Minister and President and the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. She asks questions of the utility of anthropology in such chaotic times, as well as some of the basis for these crises. It was an enlightening conversation and we hope you enjoy. We're so happy to be back so keep your ears peeled for some exciting content coming up.

A construction project is one of the most meticulously planned efforts you'll ever see in business, but despite the best-laid plans, something you can't plan for is variable weather conditions. Hot, cold, or damp — those conditions make construction challenging for workers on-site, can cause delays, and create problematic condensation and high humidity in construction areas.In this episode of the Building Management podcast brought to you by MarketScale, host Sean Heath sat down with Tim Young, business development specialist at Polygon to discuss how important a controlled environment is on construction sites.“Not only does temperature affect workers health and safety, moisture on a job site can slow down the progress of the construction,” Tim said.But the challenge comes when deciding to use a temporary climate solution or use the building's permanent HVAC unit.“A permanent HVAC is not designed to be used during construction when there's a lot of dust and fine particles that can get into the system,” Tim said. “For example, the motors on a HVAC system — when they're not filtered properly and fine dust gets into the motor, it actually decreases their life.”Andover, Mass.-based Polygon delivers Temporary Humidity Control environments and solve moisture issues for construction projects to prevent delays, prevent corrosion during tank coatings, eliminate condensation and high humidity in areas.“[Temporary systems] are much more hardy and built to handle extremes that a permanent system is not,” Tim said.For the latest news, videos, and podcasts in the Building Management Industry, be sure to subscribe to our industry publication.

Mavs PA Announcer Sean Heath joined ahead of Mavs-Clippers game 3 and led into this week's Masterpiece of the Week See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On today's episode of the Healthcare podcast brought to you by Marketscale, host Sean Heath is getting a crash course on medical crash carts from HealthFirst's marketing and product manager Lynda Goodrich.Since 1971, Washington-based HealthFirst has been providing dental and medical offices cost-effective solutions for medical emergency preparedness, infection control, medical waste, and regulatory compliance. HealthFirst offers an automated medication replenishment system for crash carts and crash kits that contain emergency medication and equipment for life support protocols in a patient medical emergency.While crash carts are always found in hospitals and acute care facilities, Lynda points out that medical emergencies happen everywhere. “Crashes don't only happen to patients in hospitals,” Lynda said. “They can happen anywhere at any time. Parking lot, shopping mall, aircraft… crash carts are a necessity in hospitals but I would argue they're a necessity elsewhere – especially in all medical and dental practices.”While a hospital may have a crash cart routinely restocked and checked by an on-site pharmacist, a smaller, non-acute care facility may have a smaller, less-used crash kit containing similar medications. These medications often expire before they are used. They can also be prone to manufacturer recalls. Manually checking those crash kits takes a lot of manual time and labor, something that can be solved with technology.“You can log onto OnTraq, for example, and see all of your expiration dates and your lot numbers in case of a national recall, but it also helps eliminate human error,” Lynda said. “Plus, OnTraq's proprietary automatic replenishment system will monitor those expiration dates and automatically send a replacement medication prior to expiration."

In this podcast from MarketScale Pro AV, PixelFLEX CMO David Venus sits down with host Sean Heath. The two discuss the perspective Venus has after working on both sides of the event curtain, breaking into the education space by working with institutions like Stanford, the satisfaction that comes from helping a client's wild dream come to life, and the implementation nuances that accompany the new revolution in architecture.

Sometimes the way to clear up a situation is to simply make the image a bit clearer. Those metrics are different for each space. In this podcast from MarketScale Pro AV, host Sean Heath speaks with Mark McIntosh, LED & Media Specialist at PixelFLEX. They discussed the relationship between resolution and install space, the impact of average viewing distance, and how resolution can actually impact content. “I encourage anyone that is thinking about using LED at a show or using it for your corporate board rooms, or using it for an installation in your business, using it for your concert, whatever the use is; just stay close in contact with either the provider or the manufacturer of the product that you're using, so that you know those resolutions, and you create specifically to that,” McIntosh said.

Albert Einstein once said, "We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them." That's true, but can we find solutions by reverse-engineering the problem with a problem solver's mindset? Our guests today on OrthoGuide, Richard Boddington and Edouard Saget, founders and CEO of OrthoGrid, answer that question and explore healthcare problem solving with host Sean Heath. Utah-based OrthoGrid started as a solution to help orthopedic surgeons position better for implants, leg lengths, and hip offset and grew into a portfolio of patented and patent-pending technologies related to intraoperative assessment using radiopaque grid patterns. "We saw an opportunity for providing solutions that could be solved real-time, along with automation of implant placements or fracture reduction," Boddington said. "But it's also supporting on the spot difficult decisions or situational awareness with the predictive capability to identify certain problems ahead of time. These are the niche problems we hope to solve." But solving technological problems in healthcare often requires a hybrid type of expert that's hard to come by. "It takes a lot of time to find the people that have the passion, interest, and knowledge," Boddington said. "One of the challenges in finding a person who has expertise in multiple areas. It's hard to find a computer science expert that's also got the in-depth knowledge of an orthopedic surgeon." While technology and AI have made the solutions possible, technology in of itself is not a solution, Saget said. "We're looking for problems with a new perspective and we find new problems all the time," he said. "The fun part is we think there are solutions for them."

The concept of security is a well-worn trope in all industries. However, the weakest link of any system is fairly easy to determine. On this episode of the NanoSessions podcast, NanoLumens IT Director Tony Tran sat down with Sean Heath to discuss surprising facts regarding most security vulnerabilities. Quite often, the simplest explanation is the most accurate, according to Tran. “Your weakest link is always going to be the end user and awareness," he said. "An untrained user is always the weakest link to any security system.” Another challenge that content managers face is the somewhat unavoidable vulnerability inherent with cloud-based access, Tran explained. “Basically, you have to operate under these pretenses that it’s not a matter of if it happens, but rather when,” he said. Taking time to plan for those possibilities during the development stage definitely makes for a better end product, detailed Tran. “We typically take a little bit longer to deploy our products, because we have to think about all of these scenarios,” he said.

Many industries can change, some seemingly overnight. Others can take years to complete their makeover. On this episode of Building a Better Bond, Randy Bogan, Warehousing Director for Fibrebond, sat down with Sean Heath to discuss the nature and rate of change in the industry. The nature of business is change, but that helps a company grow, according to Bogan. “You have to really be on your toes, now," he said. "There’s a lot going on daily. Time flies by. It’s very, very busy, and it’s just a lot going on with the product lines that we have.” After leaving the company for several years, although there may have been several product changes, the sense of family was there the moment he returned, Bogan explained. “We all like each other," he said. "We get along, because we know that, in order for Fibrebond to succeed, everyone has to succeed and do their job and do it correctly.”

Technological advancements in the healthcare industry can be shockingly effective. They also can exert a significant impact on a hospital's budget. On this episode of Full Circle Healthcare, a Mesphere Systems podcast, David Macfarlane, Marketing Communications Manager for Medsphere Systems, sat down with host Sean Heath to discuss the challenges of adopting the latest and greatest technologies. The initial cost of a new healthcare technology can vary widely, based on the size/scope of the product, Macfarlane said. “If you're looking at the entire range of IT products, specific to healthcare, so, we're talking about an entire healthcare platform. An electronic health record that runs a whole hospital, or a healthcare system, and then you could scale all the way down to a single software product that does something very specific, or a single device that does something very specific," he said. The cost and budgetary impact of technological advances is apparent across the entire industry, explained Macfarlane. “There's a linear relationship between increases in healthcare costs and the introduction of technology into the healthcare environment. When you introduce new technology, costs go up. We haven't managed to bend that curve, at all," he said. Macfarlane also explained that the rapid adoption of healthcare IT systems can decrease the usage by the physicians it was designed to assist. “They found that they sort of made their lives more complicated, not less complicated,” Macfarlane said. “They found that they spend more time now than they used to, entering data and a lot of hospitals have actually hired people to do that for physicians. So, there's still a lot of maturity (for these systems) to achieve.”

Perspective is crucial for a good salesperson, especially if it includes the technical expertise of an engineer. On this episode of Building a Better Bond, a Fibrebond podcast, Sarah Clements, Technical Sales Representative for Fibrebond, sat down with Sean Heath to discuss the importance of flexibility and stability in the industry. The ability to look for a solution through the engineer’s eyes is an invaluable asset, according to Clements. “When I look at a floor plan, I can engineer: Well, if you move this piece of equipment 10 feet to the left, or switch here or switch it right, and you can decrease the cost for power circuits and all of these other things," she said. "That’s something that really helps when you’re talking about dollars and cents.” An engineer’s mindset also comes into play when a new design approach is needed for a unique challenge, Clements explained. “You have to look at the environmental factors, the soil conditions, the wind conditions, rain, the heat," she said. "You have to look at everything - where it is going, the slope of the roof, the door placement. These are all things that, when you pick us, we’re going to look at, and we’re going to design it to its best qualities.”

We all live in separate environments every day. There’s the air outside our homes. Then, there is the air inside our homes. On this episode of the AirIQ Podcast, Tim Begoske, Midwest Regional Manager for Field Controls, sat down with Sean Heath to discuss the need to pay close attention to the air we allow into our living spaces. There is a general knowledge gap when it comes to HVAC systems from the homeowner’s perspective, Begoske said. “We have several exhaust systems in our homes,” Begoske said. “What takes place is that you have a pressure differential in the building, so the building is slightly negative compared to outdoors. What happens, then, is that air migrates into the space from places that may not be so friendly from a healthy perspective, such as the garage when you open the door and walk in.” Properly monitoring and managing the air as it enters the home has multiple benefits, Begoske explained. “Adding air from a known source that is far less likely to have contaminants in it and then also driving that through the HVAC appliance to heat it, cool it, humidify it, dehumidify it, filter it and then bring it into the space is far more healthy for the occupants," he said. "And the house, visibly, actually gets cleaner.”

The standard image of a cubicle in American business is not generally looked upon with fond memories. On this episode of the Glass is in Session podcast, Liz Morley, content marketing manager for Clarus, sat down with host Sean Heath to discuss the positive aspects of the humble cubicle and how Clarus is taking those good parts to the future of office environments. Some office environments lend themselves to individual work efforts, however, in a previous job, Morley experienced the drastic change that occurs in an office environment when new collaborative approaches are embraced. “It really allowed people to have the choice of where to work,” she said. “The power of choice is very strong, in terms of engaging your employees. If you let them make the choice of where they feel they’re going to do their best work, they are a lot more likely to be engaged and they’re going to be a lot more productive.” While it’s easy to perform a survey to measure employee engagement, it is not necessarily easy to interpret that data. “It’s so qualitative,” according to Morley. “There’s so many factors involved. The problem with employee engagement is that there are so many factors that you can change one of them, but you don’t necessarily know that there’s a direct correlation," she said. “You really have to look at it holistically and get data about what your employees are needing. What do they feel like would help them be better at their job?”

Digital Money is Still Money with Adi Ekshtain and Viko Bargig of Amaryllis Payment Solutions Electronic payment technology is becoming the de-facto option across numerous industries. On this episode of MarketScale's Software and Technology podcast, Adi Ekshtain, Co-Founder of Amaryllis Payment Solutions, and Viko Bargig, Solutions Architect for Amaryllis, sat down with Sean Heath to discuss the challenges of developing the latest and greatest technologies. The world is moving toward the several digital transaction types more quickly each day, but the basic nature of the transaction remains quite simple, Ekshtain said. “There is a lot of commonality between different payment modalities and one of them is, of course, there is a payer and a payee.” The perceived challenge in managing all of these different payment processes is actually less difficult than one would expect, explained Bargig. “It's not difficult. It's more the responsibility aspect of the business. It's to make sure that everything is always up and running and everything is always available and accessible, regardless of the action or transaction you are trying to process.” Ekshtain also explained that all of the various currencies, both physical and digital, are easily added to the system Amaryllis has created. “We can plug them into our platform. We can accept them and, where possible, we can even disburse funds using those currencies. So, for us, we don't look at them as the competition. We look at them as part of our ecosystem.”

Fortis Warranty is now hiring key positions! On this episode of the Roof Talks podcast, Rick Lewis, President and CEO of Fortis Warranty, and David Schupmann, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Fortis Warranty, sat down with host Sean Heath to discuss the type of personality that would thrive working with their disruptive approach to the industry. The first rule of creating a successful environment is getting the employees to buy in to the culture, Lewis said. “Most importantly, they (need to) believe in what we’re doing. They believe in the product," he said. "They want to be a part of an innovative, kind of ‘Uber' paradigm shift solution, if you will, in an industry.” It is entirely possible for a new employee to achieve significant success without having an encyclopedic knowledge of roofing at the start, Schupmann added. “We really believe that selling Fortis is a service. We believe that it’s very different than product sales," he said. "It’s much more consultative in the way that we approach it. So that’s important to us. The roofing? Not so much.” The reputation of a company’s partnerships can be a spectacular resource, as well, Lewis offered. “Lloyd’s has afforded us the ability to, one, use their name, which is considerably important," he said. "They’re broadly understood to be the world’s leader in underwriting specialty risk.” To learn more about this position, click here or view this PDF.

The “diligence” in “due diligence” is one of the most crucial aspects of signage, especially when dealing with multiple municipalities. On this episode of MarketScale's Pro A/V podcast, Courtney McDaniel, Director of Client Services for Kieffer | Starlite, sat down with Sean Heath to discuss the fact that a quick and thorough start to a permitting process can help with the unavoidable wait that follows. In today's fast-paced environment, clients can get ahead of themselves when pursuing their signage goals. A recent situation demonstrates the need for information before beginning construction, McDaniel said. “What they did not know, what they did not ask before going into construction, was that the roof line comes into play for this city and their signage could not go above their roof line.” The value a signage expert provides is quite substantial, explained McDaniel. “With our expertise, in terms of city codes, and also, taking it a step further, with our manufacturing and installation logistics, we can execute a signage program that's just going to run so much more smoothly and be that much more effective.” Municipal regulations can be a significant factor in a customer's decision to open a location in that city. “We have certain cities here locally, in North Texas, where they restrict what colors can be on a given sign,” McDaniel said. “We can inform the customer if they might be better off just looking elsewhere. Even just moving a couple of miles east or west of where they're going, so they fall into another city's jurisdiction.”

Surveying has always been a labor-intensive, precise industry. The technological advances from Microdrones have increased precision while reducing the manpower required. On this episode of the Propelling podcast, Matt Rosenbalm, Microdrones Sales Manager for the Southern US, Ross Kenney, UAS Sales and Support Lead for Navigation Electronics, and Robert Martin, Licensed Surveyor & Senior Technical Lead Survey Sales for Navigation Electronics, sat down with host Sean Heath and they discussed a few of the ways that Microdrones is changing the face of surveying. While surveying maintains the same exacting demands as always, today’s tools are much more efficient. “Surveying can sometimes be so labor enforcive, that your biggest overhead is going to be your employees,” Martin explained. “As technology progresses, I can see more and more uses for being able to take a drone, fly it around a piece of property, bring it back to the office, process it, and be able to create a deliverable that would have taken a surveyor weeks to do, he might be able to actually accomplish this in days now.”

The business world relies on data; there's no escaping it, and there shouldn't be a desire to. Sophisticated data analysis is making business more efficient across the board. On this episode of the MarketScale Industrial IoT Podcast, Lane Leach, Senior Systems Engineer for Pinnacle Business Systems, sat down with host Sean Heath and they discussed the complex challenge of backing up a company's critical systems. The most reliable way to recover from a catastrophic data corruption event is to restore the necessary systems from their backups. As Leach points out, for many companies, those backups simply were not created, whether through oversight or lack of priority. “It doesn't take more than a few minutes of having that be unavailable to be a quick reminder of how important it really is," he said. The stark impact of not having a comprehensive backup plan is clearly reinforced during a crisis, according to Leach. “It could cripple your business to the point where you may have to go out of business,” he said. Leach explained that not all dangers are unforeseen. He described a situation occurring in California to illustrate the need to prepare for expected issues, as well. “Because of fires, you have the major electrical utility provider making a proactive decision, in their case, to have power outages. Well, imagine your business being in one of those impacted and affected counties and not having power for several days,” he said. “Where is your data? Is that something your business can withstand?” The majority of businesses focus on the wrong side of the data backup equation, offered Leach. “If we approach high availability and business continuity from a perspective of the data, and not the equipment, let's start there,” he suggested. “The place to start is: what can I live without?”

A common refrain heard in the Pro AV space is the admiration for all of the newest technological advances. On this episode of NanoLumens' NanoSessions, Joel Krieger, Chief Creative Officer for Second Story, sat down with host Sean Heath and they discussed how the newest disruptive technologies are being used in more subtle ways. Generally speaking, digital displays have followed a path similar to that of the internet, according to Krieger. “In the beginning, the internet was pretty interesting and it was like the Wild West. Eventually, it got commercialized and advertising began to really take over," he said. The digital display industry initially fell into the same pattern of prioritizing the advertising disruption, however, Krieger feels that is changing rapidly. “We once again have a moment to kind of think about how we treat the ‘built environment’ and how we activate these canvases in a way that’s in service of the people and the business,” he explained. The recent unveiling of a massive lobby installation, titled “Unify”, reinforces Krieger’s feeling that the next evolution of display technology application will be markedly different that the current digital modality. “With Unify, we’re not trying to communicate a message; we’re trying to create a feeling for a space,” said Krieger. “There are other ways to calculate value or return on investment from a media piece and it’s not always ‘how many impressions of your advertising message can you get across?’.” Redefining the purpose of the display is a way of acknowledging the impact of the message displayed on it, as well, according to Krieger. “What’s the value of how your employees feel in your building? How do you put a value on that," he asked.

There are forces that we deal with on a daily basis that are apparent and ever-present. There are, however, other forces that are exponentially stronger, that most of us will never notice. On this episode of the MarketScale Sciences Podcast, host Sean Heath sat down with Jakob Heller from Ikon Science and they discussed the pressure associated with accurately calculating pore pressure. The planet we walk on every day is constantly undergoing colossal change, on an unusually large scale, beneath the surface, according to Heller. “We're dealing with geology here, so, it's a huge time frame that people potentially, normally wouldn't be able to grasp.” he said. “The sort of conventional pore pressure prediction techniques were sort of developed and are best -suited for relatively young, recently deposited rocks.” The first inclination is to assume that these calculations are strictly a mathematical process, but that is not the case, Heller explained. “The key thing in order to be able to predict pore pressure and understand what is happening, in terms of pore pressure,” Heller said, “is to understand the geology. You have to be a very good geologist because we need to try and understand how pore pressure has developed throughout the history of the geological basin we are working in.” There is an added layer of personal pressure that the teams face as well, explained Heller. “The work we do, in many cases, has some implications for people drilling wells, obviously. If we get our pore pressure prediction wrong, then that might have some serious ramifications," he said. Heller also presented an explanation of “hydrocarbon migration.” “One thing that is very important in terms of pressure and understanding pressure and how it has developed through time in a geological basin, is that it imposes a big control on the migration of hydrocarbons in sedimentary basins,“ he said. “That is often the case. Especially when we're looking at conventional reservoirs, is that hydrocarbons have migrated out of the source rock and into the reservoir, the sort of container rock, into the trap."

The construction industry is seeing an exponential increase in the number of programs and tools available for any given project. On this episode of Flintco Forward, host Sean Heath sat down with Jason Schrader and Kevin Bromenshenk, Regional VDC Managers at Flintco, to discuss the need to minimize the number of tools used on any given project. The sheer number of tools available today can actually be a hindrance to success, according to Schrader. “Not always is every piece of technology pertinent to every project,” he said. “We want to make sure in our processes that we pick and select the right tools for the right job.” Narrowing down the list of tools that will be applied should be the result of listening to team members desires, Bromenshenk offered. “Really the answer comes from listening well to your team. A lot of the times, expectations will govern what tools you need to use,” Bromenshenk said. “Generally, those are tells on what tools that particular team is going to be focused on to make their job a better success.” Organizing and facilitating that process for Flintco is their “focused BIM,” explained Schrader. “We use that focused BIM process to strategically evaluate and implement technology, per project," he said. While there is a benefit associated with whittling down the number of tools used, there is a proven advantage to increasing the number of team members involved from the initial stages of any project. “It’s all about integration. There is no one person who is responsible for all of the technology on the project,“ said Schrader. “Our VDC team is integrated throughout the life cycle of the project, but at no point are we the end-all, be-all or sole providers of the technology.” Bromenshenk commented that the influx of this technology leads to some interesting conversations with people outside of the industry. “Every time I do describe to somebody what I do for a living, they are just blown away by the fact that people who build buildings are engrossed so heavily into technologies that, in a lot of ways are borderline animations," he said.

The benefits of the "as-a-service" model of providing technology, tools, and products over the internet, versus locally or on-site within an enterprise, are undeniable: Faster, better, and cheaper, to put it simply. Now, data centers are among the newest entrants to the anything-as-a-service model -- an area that Virginia-based ViON has been mastering since 2005. On this episode of the MarketScale Software and Technology Podcast, host Sean Heath sat down with ViON's Andy Flick, Portfolio Manager, and Rob Davies, Executive Vice President of Operations, to discuss the proliferation of DCaaS and how their customers use the solution. Before cloud services, companies large and small, private and public sector, purchased the technology necessary for data storage and housed it either on-site or locally, Davies explained. Data Center-as-a-service is an outcome-based model of IT that can deliver all or individual elements of data center technology managed by a service provider, the customer, or through a hybrid cloud model. "[Customers say] I want a technology that behaves like the cloud. I want to be able to use this technology for the time I need it, then turn it off, and be done with it," Davies said. "That's what ViON specializes in. We fill the gap between the systems they own and the public cloud with a cloud model that can be delivered anywhere." The cloud ushered in a new approach to IT infrastructure, Flick said. "It's interesting that for many many years, the technologist put together the servers, the storage, the networking in order to process data," Flick said. "Now we live in an era where its the data, an outcome of something we're trying to get accomplished, and we're trying to do that in the simplest, most cost-effective manner."

One of the largest sources of financial inefficiency for any construction company are expenditures that can be prevented by consistent asset tracking. On this episode of ThingTech’s Enterprise Asset Intelligence podcast, the CEO of yardz, Jason Perez, sat down with Sean Heath and they discussed the simple way to solve this complex issue. The most common mistake happens for both owned assets and rented equipment according to Perez. “People are renting a lot of stuff that they don’t even need to rent, because they don’t even know where their own stuff is,” he said. “That was kind of an interesting segue way of rentals to owned and, really, it’s all about getting the tools regardless of whether you own them or not.” It may seem that a highly complex solution would be required, but that’s not necessarily the case. “Our industry is simple. Really simple. The more complex you make it, the less people connect to your solution,” Perez said. The range of heavy construction project benefits are obvious, but other job sites can leverage the new technology, as well. “It’s been a big deal for these roofing contractors to be able to go in and go: ‘Hey. Every project we go out, I’m a click of a button away from renting a reach lift, a port-a-potty, and a dumpster. And it takes me about 15 seconds of effort,“ Perez explained. Misplaced or forgotten equipment is lost revenue that Perez sees on a consistent basis. “I would say we walk in regularly, 8 months, 6 months, 3 months, you know, it’s months that people are leaving pieces of equipment and we’re talking tens of thousands of dollars that they’re leaving on the table that they could be putting back to the bottom line," he said.

The process of integrating new systems into existing ecosystems is detailed, by its very nature. On today’s installment of Service Logic's Conversations from The EDGE, host Sean Heath spoke with Greg Crumpton and StrategITcom’s Carrie Goetz to discuss the nature of an IT ecosystem and the challenges that present themselves during these implementations. “I think ‘ecosystems’ is really sort of an oxymoron, right? We know that it’s an ecosystem, but people don’t treat it that way. Budgets are still very much siloed. There’s still kind of a component where Facilities does their thing and IT does their thing, but nobody really treats it as a cohesive ecosystem,” Goetz said. One of the biggest keys to success, according to Crumpton, is getting everyone on the same page as early as possible. “You want to be there for that first conversation, so that you start setting expectations early, and you’re also, while you’re explaining those expectations, setting requirements. You’re finding out more and more detail,” he said. “You’re getting all that detail as you go to help build that formula right out of the gate that first time.” Recent outages with massive, cloud-based companies, shine a spotlight on proper data center planning according to Goetz. “Outages are always preventable, but throwing additional redundancy at an outage is not always the best way to go,” she said. “If IT has done their job and they fail over to other sites, then you can minimize the impact of that outage. But, if you put all of your eggs in one basket and the handle breaks: you’re going to be scrambling, right?”

In the business world, there are a few phrases that are mainly used out of habit, without really considering the root meaning of the words being put together. On this episode of Conversations from The EDGE by Service Logic, Elizabeth Barber, Service Manager for Service Logic, had a thoughtful conversation with host Sean Heath as they discussed exactly that concept. “Any time there is business being done, there is ‘service’ being given,” said Barber. “You have customer service at your local Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts. And you have customer service all the way up to when you buy a million-dollar home. Those are very different industries and the service is not separate from the industry in which it is in.” For Barber, ‘serving’ is a synonym for ‘solving.' “Getting good service is not always ‘the customer is always right’ sort of philosophy. Good service is when you feel like somebody cares about what is going on,” she said. “I often believe that sometimes you make your biggest advocates when you take a situation that was going sideways and you make it right for them.” In her experience, focusing on the personal relationships facilitates the professional transactions. “I always like to say that my job is not really related to HVAC, my job is communication. If I communicate properly, to the right people, at the end of the day, the HVAC work gets done.”

On each episode of National Geographic's Diggers, metal detector hobbyists Tim “The Ringmaster” Saylor and his friend “King George” Wyant traverse the United States in search of buried treasure. But treasure means different things to different people, says Saylor, who sat down with host Sean Heath for this episode of Discover the Truth by Garrett Metal Detectors. "I'm one of the very few lucky ones that make a living off this, but I don't make a living off the things I find," he said. "I would be doing this whether or not I was on television because I do it for the love of it. This is about the thrill of the hunt and the sport of hunting." But learning a sport takes time, Saylor advised. "Don't be intimidated. Do what you want and you'll get alot out of the sport," he said. While Garrett has a range of products that vary from nearly "plug and play" models that make it easy for novices to get started in the sport, veteran detectors find more as they become more acquainted with the features and technology. "We know our machines forwards and backwards. We can sense what's going on just by what we're hearing," Saylor said. "But there's so much garbage in the ground that you have to learn how to interpret each little tweak to know what's bad, what's good, and what's iffy." Among Saylor's favorite finds are an 22k solid gold mourning ring dated 1744 with an amethyst stone (the "greatest ring I've ever found in my life", according to him).

Consumer reliance on personal technology devices isn't dwindling any time soon. The average American spends 5.4 hours on their phone daily and that figure trends upwards for younger generations. If phones are nearly a permanent appendage, they should be able to withstand life, argues Zsolt Pulai, Executive Vice President of Technology and Engineering at HZO. He sat down with host Sean Heath for a new episode of the MarketScale Software and Technology Podcast. "Three hundred million phones are lost each year to water damage and that's costing the industry $100 billion," Pulai said. "Everything from medical devices to automotive, there is a significant need for protecting these devices sensors and circuitry more than ever. Consumers need more protection." HZO's proprietary nanocoating protects water-vulnerable electronics from moisture. The ultra-thin, nanoscale coating was engineered in-house -- something that sets Salt Lake City-based HZO apart from the competition. "If we design in-house, we don't rely on other solution providers or vendors," Pulai said. "That makes our work easier and more cost-effective." In-house engineering and production is part of Pulai's core philosophy. "We keep everything simple," he said. "We could not call ourselves engineers if we didn't want to do more innovation," Pulai said. "We are building new optimized machines and optimized processes. Everything is getting faster, smaller, cheaper."

There's no doubt that cloud computing as a platform and a technology has been rapidly growing and evolving in the past decade. Everything, I mean everything is in the cloud nowadays. But is that growth sustainable? On this episode of the Software and Technology podcast brought to you by Marketscale, host Sean Heath sought the answer from two experts: Ed Stockton, Vice President of Services and Pablo Gomez, Services Engagement Group Manager, both at ViON. The Virginia-based company implements and manages Infrastructure “as-a-Service” (IaaS) and Platform “as-a-Service” (PaaS) as well as multicloud solutions including private, hybrid, public cloud, and multicloud. "I don't think there's any risk of the cloud computing infrastructure disappearing anytime soon," Stockton said. "The sustainability of the platform itself is very confident." Confidence is good considering the sheer volume of data that cloud platforms are storing. "We're creating more data in one year than we'll have created in the entire history of humankind," Stockton said. But that amount of data can lead to cloud sprawl, similar to service sprawl a decade ago. "Whenever people are accessing cloud technologies, it's very easy to turn systems on, use them, and kind of forget about them," Gomez said. "When you need another system, you figure it's really easy so I can turn on another one. Then before you know it if you're not closely managing your cloud environment, you can have all these machines stood up and the problem is you're paying for systems and workload that you're not even really using anymore."

There's so much new technology coming down the digital display pike in the next decade that our guest today on the Pro AV Podcast is almost giddy. For this new episode, host Sean Heath sat down with Mitch Rosenberg, senior director of sales for enterprise distribution partnerships at Absen, to break down the kind of long-felt impact mini LED technology will have on the industry. "What you'll see in information [content] that comes to you, through you... It's amazing," Rosenberg said. "I'm so excited about what I see in the next 5-10 years that it's the reason I'll stay in this game probably until my 70s." Rosenberg has spent three decades working with display technology, tracking its first iterations of Light Emitting Diodes to where LED is headed today. "Mini LED is the latest technology in my opinion," he said. "Not micro LED but mini. It's taking LED the next generation up." As exciting as LED displays can be, Rosenberg admits even he has become blind to landmark displays in Las Vegas, Times Square, and Tokoyo. "I walk down Las Vegas Blvd. or Flamingo Blvd., and I don't even look at the signs anymore. They don't grab my attention unless there is something spectacular," Rosenberg said. "Something special has to occur, and that's a combination of content, design, what the display is, and what the manufacturer is -- whether it's LED, 3D, or holographic."

This interview originally aired on MarketScale's Pro AV Podcast. There’s so much new technology coming down the digital display pike in the next decade that our guest today on the Pro AV Podcast is almost giddy. For this new episode, host Sean Heath sat down with Mitch Rosenberg, senior director of sales for enterprise distribution partnerships at Absen, to break down the kind of long-felt impact mini LED technology will have on the industry. “What you’ll see in information [content] that comes to you, through you… It’s amazing,” Rosenberg said. “I’m so excited about what I see in the next 5-10 years that it’s the reason I’ll stay in this game probably until my 70s.” Rosenberg has spent three decades working with display technology, tracking its first iterations of Light Emitting Diodes to where LED is headed today. “Mini LED is the latest technology in my opinion,” he said. “Not micro LED but mini. It’s taking LED the next generation up.” As exciting as LED displays can be, Rosenberg admits even he has become blind to landmark displays in Las Vegas, Times Square, and Tokoyo. “I walk down Las Vegas Blvd. or Flamingo Blvd., and I don’t even look at the signs anymore. They don’t grab my attention unless there is something spectacular,” Rosenberg said. “Something special has to occur, and that’s a combination of content, design, what the display is, and what the manufacturer is — whether it’s LED, 3D, or holographic.”

Computerized maintenance management software is arguably one of the important purchases you'll make in manufacturing, but as our guest today on the podcast can tell you, it's a complicated process. In this new episode, host Sean Heath sat down with Steve Reed, Vice President of Safety and Engineering at Kasa, for answers to all your CMMS questions. So, how do you know you're using all the functions efficiently, if at all, and what do you do when it comes to integrating that CMMS with your control system? Those are issues that companies often face when implementing new software or technology, Steve said. "Like a lot of software packages, people get accustomed to using certain features within them but there are other capabilities within those tools that they don't necessarily use," he said, explaining that initial training at installation doesn't necessarily mean your team is using all possible functions correctly. He suggests going back through the features with the manufacturer every few years to ensure all features are being utilized and new team members are receiving firsthand training. Also in this episode, Steve discussed how industrial IoT can aid predictive maintenance scheduling in a meaningful way. "If you do your predictive maintenance accurately and reliably by integrating the control system into your CMM, you can easily predict these imminent failures well in advance," Steve said. "You can manage that in a smart way before it's an emergency."

Without a background or steady base of knowledge of Pro AV, it's honestly hard to keep up with all the advanced digital display technology that NanoLumens puts to work in its state-of-the-art displays. Micro LED versus LCD, pixels, pitch, curved display... for a new customer or someone new to the industry, learning and understanding all the terminology is no doubt a challenge. On this new episode of NanoSessions, a NanoLumens podcast, host Sean Heath welcomed senior copywriter Robert Simms to discuss the learning curve and how he goes about writing copy that'll get read. "When you're learning how to learn something, first you have to accept the fact you probably don't know anything about the space you're getting into," Simms said. "That was certainly the case with me. When I came to the industry, I had almost zero understanding of how the technology and the industry worked and how people in the industry communicated with each other." But lacking a background in engineering helped Simms approach learning complex technology with an outsider's or layman's viewpoint. "My background in communications helped me take a complex subject in engineering and translate it into more simplistic ideas that people without an engineering background will understand," Simms said. "If I had my druthers, I'd write as informally as possible because I've found the most natural way to communicate is to write as you speak."

Trillions of pieces of data are going untapped every year, and it's holding businesses back. This data, surprisingly, consists of human speech from call centers, and it's ripe for collection and analysis. On this new episode of the Software & Technology Podcast brought to you by MarketScale, host Sean Heath sat down with Steve Kaiser, CEO of OrecX, a Chicago-based call recording company. "Human speech is an untapped resource of data," Kaiser said. "If you took the top three call center markets in the world and did some math on the number of words spoken in those call centers, it's in excess of 120 to 150 trillion words every year." He continued, "Until those words are captured, converted into text, categorized so further meaning and value can be extracted from them, it's not doing much for the company." That's why it's time for call centers to start analyzing its recorded data, he said. "Digital transformation is the way to use that valuable data in ways to extract value from the interactions you have with your customers." OrecX provides contact centers and business VoIP providers with full-featured and easy-to-use call recording software, helping them improve their quality assurance and aiding agent training. Taking that a step further is organizing that data, being a part of the emerging technologies that help organize the world's spoken information, he said.

Walking the tradeshow floor, you can often tell the difference between a well-thought out exhibit booth and one that's been hastily planned. Today on the Pro AV podcast brought to you by MarketScale, host Sean Heath sat down with a definitive expert on quality displays, Mike Scherer, President of Downing Displays, regarded as one of the leading exhibit houses in the country. "When someone is doing a show or event, it's not about just showing up," Mike said. "There's a lot of time put into pre-event planning." But pre-event planning is more than planning what happens in your space, he explained. "It's planning who you want to talk to, planning the things you do during the show that may not be in your space, and obviously the things you want to do and the people you want to attract and speak to at the show," Mike said. Attracting people means creating a memorable experience. "We try to create an experience, and whether that experience is doing something or seeing some type of motion visual that pulls you in, but it's something that creates a memory," Mike said. What not to do? "Having people in the space that are on their phone, eating, or talking to coworkers," he said. "You want to have people ready and looking interested."

What's the single most valuable skillset for a skilled tradesman? Surprise, it's not 100 percent talent. Soft skills can be the secret ingredient for success in blue-collar trades, according to Josh Zolin, author of the book Blue Is the New White: The Best Path to Success No One Told You About and CEO of Windy City Equipment Services. Josh joined Service Logic Vice President Greg Crumpton and host Sean Heath on this new episode of Conversations from The EDGE with Service Logic. "I used to think soft skills were 50/50 versus technical prowess, but now I think overall EQ is superior," Josh said. "There's always help on the technical side, but being able to put the customer at ease far outweighs being able to read a meter or a set of gauges." Josh and Greg point to emotional intelligence, empathy for customers, and a service-minded attitude as traits that fall under the "soft skills" umbrella. "That's really the path to success," Josh said. But before the industry can extoll the virtues of soft skills, it must first change its perception. A career in the skilled trades was once well-regarded as a good, lucrative profession, but somewhere along the way society labeled skilled tradesmen as blue-collar and less desirable than college-educated white-collar workers, Josh explained. "The responsibility falls on us inside the trades to bring to light what a career in the trades actually means and how many different trajectories are available," Josh said. Greg said, "That means you have to reach out and bring people with you. It's all about relations."

In this new episode of the Pro AV Podcast brought to you by MarketScale, host Sean Heath tackled a topic ever-present and challenging in all industries: change. How do you manage it, how do you deal with it, and how do you make sure it doesn't derail your productivity? Evan Green, founder and chairman of Personiv, a global leader in outsourcing solutions and author of Beat Your Competition: 3 Key Principles of Successful Outsourcing, gave his perspective. To successfully manage change, first, you have to embrace it. That means knowing your company's identity and recognizing what you don't know. "I think a lot of people get trapped into obvious thinking, so they spend a lot of time maybe a whole career trying to stay above water without really knowing their business," Green said, naming Kodak, now defunct-Blockbuster, and ailing Sears-Roebuck as examples. The next step is sometimes the hardest for entrepreneurs, Green admitted. "Focus is key. There are too many examples of companies and entrepreneurs who die of indigestion versus starvation. They're chasing too many shiny objects," he said. He also shared the two books that have given him the most insight in his life and business, and explained Pareto's 80/20 rule as a "magic ratio" to focus on what makes a Pro AV business irresistible to an ideal customer and be successful. "Success is delighting your customers," Green said, explaining how focusing 80 percent of your efforts on target activities can be the formula to success.

The very best in class technology for a building or facility is tech that's explicitly planned for and integrated with foresight. That's the message today's guests from Pennsylvania-based Z-Band Technologies discussed with host Sean Heath on the Pro AV podcast. Video has become a preeminent content delivery method everywhere from social media, to video search engine, to shopping. "We're in a space where the amount of data we're using for video transmissions on Amazon, Facebook or Twitter feed is expected to be over 80 percent of our Wi-Fi traffic by the year 2022," said Dan Helfrick, Z-Band vice president. Working with audio visual designers, consultants and commercial end customers, Z-Band is an industry expert for ultra-reliable, easy to use products and services as it pertains to the mass distribution and control of video for business. But the same video-streaming luxuries we've come to expect at home via Wi-Fi don't necessarily translate to corporate and public facility infrastructures, where executives envision having their favorite channels in crystal clear HD in common viewing areas. "Everybody's looking for a little bit of everything now," he said. "Rarely is Wi-Fi the best choice," said Joe Dalto, Z-Band's southwest territory Manager. "When you are in a corporate or healthcare environment where the quality of the video is important, you need to make sure you have a dedicated amount of bandwidth or infrastructure available for the video platform." That's when a hardwired video distribution system is the best choice. "People will spend a lot of time on data infrastructure, fiber backbone, security services, those types of things, and the actual TV system doesn't always get planned for," Helfrick said.

Great customer service is about delivering in a timely manner with the least amount of roadblocks possible. But is service also a soft skill? "You bet," said Greg Crumpton, vice president of critical facilities at Service Logic. On this episode of Conversations from The EDGE with Service Logic, host Sean Heath discussed the role of attitude and company culture play in providing great service with Crumpton and guest Erik Crawford, founder and president of Ultra Pure Systems, a leading manufacturer of commercial water purification equipment for data centers, healthcare facilities, and more. As the largest privately owned HVAC and mechanical services company in the United States, Service Logic is colloquially known to its customers as the "factory service guys," Crawford said. "At the end of the day we want to make any problems transparent to the customer who bought the piece of equipment," Crawford said. "It has been proven over and over, the technician is the 100 percent most valuable person the manufacturer has once that equipment leaves the door. He continued, "Having a strong service arm that can resolve those problems in a short period of time really makes or breaks most manufacturers." As such, service providers such as Service Logic become subject matter experts on the equipment and parts it supports, something Crawford said is a valuable surprise for customers. "I understand the service guy may not know everything about my particular equipment, but having the right attitude and approaching something with confidence goes a long way," he said. That's where soft skills such as listening to the customer's problem and being diligent about working the problem are critical for the "2 a.m., on-call people," as Crumpton described. "You're there because somebody has a need, and that need is super important," Crumpton said. "It's part of company culture to make sure your team understands we're a service company and service, unfortunately, doesn't have a time clock."

Running a small HVAC business is difficult, relying on a single owner to maintain all aspects of the business. In this new episode of Conversations from The EDGE with Service Logic, host Sean Heath sat down with Tim Riedel, president of Service Logic, to discuss how the nationwide HVAC company approaches acquisitions and help ensure that buyer and seller see eye to eye. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company is the largest privately held energy and HVAC/mechanical company in the United States. Their robust acquisitions program offers company owners the opportunity to financially secure their business while gaining a well-established partner in business. “For many, selling their business is like selling their baby,” Riedel said. “We need to feel out whether we are the right fit for you and are you the right company for us. The more time we spend getting to know one another, the better chance we’ll both make the right decision.” Riedel said interestingly, most sellers aren’t looking to retire and leave the business. “They take chips off the table, secure what they’ve built, and stay now, feeling a tremendous burden off their shoulders,” he said. “Then in the future, they want to have their employees and customers taken care of and make sure their business has the right home.”

On today's episode of NanoSessions, host Sean Heath sat down with Joe' Lloyd, NanoLumens vice president of global marketing and business development about the company’s recent study on competing value propositions of LED vs. LCD display technology and shared what the future looks like for LED display. “The weird and the wow, we sometimes call them,” said Lloyd. “We’re the company that people come to with a paper napkin drawing and a really amazing idea, and they’re looking to bring that to life.” The Georgia-based company is known for creating large-format LED displays such as JFK International Airport’s Terminal 4 digital display that measures 30-feet wide by 10-feet high, among others. But NanoLumens tackled a new challenge with this industry-wide survey, conducted over three months with 450 integrators, direct buyers, architects, and end users of LED and LCD display products. While price and size often lead the conversation, serviceability and hours of use are two important factors that consumers said they consider when considering LED versus LCD. “This survey jumps into the value proposition,” Lloyd said. “From an upfront spend perspective, LED display is going to cost more up front. But we’re diving into the total cost of ownership and what does that investment look like over time.” For example, enterprise-level LCDs have gotten larger with much smaller bezels, while bezel-free LEDs have improved with smaller pixel pitches and longevity with 100,000 hour diodes. Also in this episode, Lloyd revealed some of the surprises found in the survey as well as a discrepancy between users’ perception and reality.

There is always a new interior design trend around the corner. Some designs last through the ages, while others fade away as fads; today we explore the ones that we think are going to have a lasting impact on the industry. On this episode of Element Sessions, we welcomed Chris Dwyer, western regional sales manager at Element Designs, to break down the latest trends in kitchen and bath design. Coming off a whirlwind trip to Cologne, Germany having attended the leading international trade show for furniture design, interzum, Dwyer dished on what he saw there. Bright pops of color, etched patterns in glass, and gold and brass embellishments on aluminum fixtures were just a few standout design trends that could be here to stay. Interzum, a sprawling trade show taking up eleven different convention halls, was a “buffet of design trends,” as host Sean Heath put it. So what design elements stood out among the throng of booths? “It’s definitely about space...how to get more out of the space," Dwyer said. Design elements that open up spaces without the clutter of extra fixtures are top performers. Open shelving stood out among the crowd, as well as clean cabinetry. “How to conceal everything was a big point at the show," Dwyer said, referencing how hardware, like hinges, are becoming less visible to the user’s eye. In short, “clean, contemporary, straight modern lines” are in. Consumers are seeking minimalism as their living spaces shrink, and the design world is reflecting this global shift. Dwyer's take on European furniture and design gave us a glimpse into what will take footing in the US next year when trends make their way across the pond.

Got invited by Greg Crumpton, to sit in with himself and Sean Heath of Market Scale to discuss the trades and and blue collar industries.

How do you nail down the definition of contemporary? Ask an expert like Suzanne DeRusha, president of Suzanne Kimberly Design. In this episode of Element Sessions, an Element Designs podcast, host Sean Heath explored the fundamental principles of creating successful contemporary designs with the noted designer. So, does contemporary design have a firm or fixed definition? Yes and no. “Modern and contemporary are often transposed or used together, and that’s because typically consumers don’t know the differences,” DeRusha said. “But the style itself is always changing. Trying to keep your finger on that pulse is like knowing what each manufacturer is thinking and who their innovative brains are.” That’s because ever-changing technology and functional engineering constitute a big part of contemporary style and design, DeRusha explained. Cabinet hardware function has come a long way with soft-close hinges and lift-up doors, for example. These are functional upgrades but represent a new sleek aesthetic that is prominent in contemporary design. In this episode, DeRusha and Heath discussed the old debate of form versus function in design and the newer question of whether advances in materials drive design, or do design requirements cause material evolutions. “We are living and designing in a time that all the elements are merging in perfect harmony,” DeRusha said.

Dallas' Lakewood neighborhood is home to the circa 1938 Lakewood Theater, a long-standing piece of North Texas history. Not everything is brick and mortar though; when its iconic neon marquee needed refurbishment, owners turned to Denton-based Kieffer | Starlit. On this episode of the Po AV Podcast, host Sean Heath sat down with Mark Jackson, national account manager for Kieffer | Starlite, to recount how they helped bring the theater's iconic neon sign back to its former twilight glory. “There was certainly pressure to maintain the nostalgia,” Jackson said of starting the project in November 2018. “We wanted to maintain the originality of what the sign is.” Kieffer | Starlite set about repairing the neon lights that panel the tower and replacing the lights found in the light ball atop the sign. They used one of the last full-functioning neon plants in Dallas to hand blow the glass tubes used for this unique lighting solution. Jackson shared insight into the artistry as well as outdoor practicality for using neon in signs, rather than replacing with LED. “Neon just has a certain quality that's not the same with LED,” he said. Maintaining its nostalgic cache was vital for a project like this, Jackson explained. “What makes Lakewood unique is there are not many other neighborhoods that are so attached to things within their community like the Lakewood Theater,” Jackson said.

Robotics kits are becoming a standard teaching tool in the classroom, but there’s still a lot of complexity and cost associated with incorporating this popular STEM tool, said longtime educator and EdTech expert Travis Rink. In this episode of the EdTech Podcast, host Sean Heath sat down with him to discuss the ins and outs of using Mimio’s new robotics kit for STEM classroom learning. “In STEM, we’re training kids for jobs that haven’t even been created yet,” Rink said. As a science teacher, Rink worked with Mimio’s various professional development and classroom tools. Now as the Mimio Educator Advocacy Leader, he manages global training programs. Mimio’s latest tool is the MyBot educational robotics system, developed to fulfill a need in robotics and coding in the classroom without the added complexity common in most systems. “I’m a teacher at heart. And I really think the Mimio MyBot solution is a fantastic system that’s going to revolutionize what kids can do,” Rink said. “What makes it so cool is that it’s easy to use. Take it out of the box and it’s ready to go.” The MyBot is easy for teachers as well as children ranging from elementary school, who use blocks of preassembled code to give the robot commands, to high schoolers, who use Python to work with the robot, Rink said. But the distinction, Rink said, is this robot’s fundamental purpose. “In the past few years we’ve seen a lot more companies displaying their robots but a lot of them are just toys. How would I use this in the classroom?” Rink said. “ That’s where the Mimio MyBot solution is a great head above by getting to the nuts and bolts of programming it.”

In this episode of the Energy Podcast, host Sean Heath sat down with Jonathan Azarcon, executive vice president of marketing and customer solutions at iS5 Communications, to discuss the delicate balance of security versus functionality in the communications and power utility industries. iS5 Communications, Inc. is a global provider of integrated services and solutions, and manufacturer of intelligent industrial ethernet products. Their products are designed to meet demand requirements of utility sub-stations, transportation, and industrial applications. In the past decade, there's been a rise in cyber threats on critical infrastructure, including power utilities, nuclear power, and wastewater utilities, Azarcon explained. “These all impact daily lives,” he said. “So it's a narrow tightrope that we continuously walk on to ensure we don't impact reliability and accessibility to the systems.” Challenges often exist at the intersection of new technology processes and legacy infrastructure or systems. Automation helps mitigate these challenges, but shouldn't be a completely hands-off solution. “There's a lot of degree of thought required to implement a proper system,” Azarcon said. “If you look at power utility customers, they do a lot of proof of concept before putting something into the production network. At the same time, there is technology that can help customers to automate better, but that's not to say that you shouldn't still do a proof of concept to ensure that the reliability is guaranteed to perform the way customers expect it to.”

It's not just huge call centers in multinational companies that outsource their talent. Everybody outsources on some scale, whether it's a startup that outsources the bookkeeping and back office duties for their business or even an individual who outsources their day-to-day needs to someone more skilled than they are. In this episode of the Software and Technology Podcast, host Sean Heath sat down with Tim Witucki, senior vice president of development for Personiv to discuss smart outsourcing as a competitive edge in the industry. Witucki has seen firsthand the role that smart outsourcing plays in a startup business, having worked in both startups and corporations that offer talent solutions. Austin-based Personiv helps businesses run more efficiently by providing outsourced talent for key process and business systems such as back office, recruiting, creative services, and customer engagement. “As you know, talent is hard to find these days because startups, whether you're launching in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or London, these high-touch roles are crucial to having a successful launch,” Witucki said. In this episode, Witucki shared tips for finding the right outsourcing solution, including a critical factor for onboarding success — navigating cultural norms for a company and the outsourcing solution. He and Heath also discussed how outsourcing has helped companies grow in their respective sector.

The true cost of managing cash for a business is hard to pin down, especially as a business owner. It's a less quantifiable cost; while retailers incur a cost to accept debit and credit cards as currency, there's an inherent cost of labor to accepting cash as well. Simplifying this process for business owners may come in the form of cash recycling technology, which is is “reducing the cost of money” in many unexpected ways. On today's Software and Technology Podcast episode, host Sean Heath sat down with Vik Devjee, vice president of CIMA America to discuss ways retailers can reduce the cost of managing cash through cash recycling solutions. Rockwall-based Tech Data Systems partners with CIMA America, a global provider of cash handling solutions for banking, retail, and hospitality industries, specifically cash recycling systems for use in the retail space. “Retailers today experience a lot of pain around managing cash in a typical retail store environment, such as a grocery store, department store, or quick service restaurant,” Devjee said. “Handling cash is a labor-intensive process.” In retail environments, staff may spend a lot of time in a cash office manually managing cash, employ loss prevention teams to pinpoint missing cash, or use cash in transit companies to transport cash from the premises. Both these soft and hard costs of handling cash are chief reasons why retailers are turning to automated cash recycling systems. “It's reducing the cost of money,” Devjee said. Devjee discussed how the dwindling use of cash is affecting the industry in the U.S. and abroad, why the U.S. leads the world in people who don't use banks, and why partners such as Tech Data Systems use CIMA America solutions for cash handling worldwide.

Digital cinema technology in the Pro AV industry is changing at an ever-accelerating rate, no one is arguing that. What makes this shift unique, though, is the fact that evolving cinema technology is changing the consumer experience on a wholesale level, not simply changing the technology that the consumer uses. To explain what this means for the Pro AV industry, NanoLumens' chief technology officer Gary Feather sat down with host Sean Heath on this new episode of NanoSessions. They broke down what made DLP projection revolutionary at the time, how the motion picture industry has come around to digital cinema, and what’s possible with new direct view LED cinema in Pro AV. “It’s all about creating new experiences for customers and for creatives, it’s about a story well told,” Feather said. That might be unusual to hear from a CTO — focusing on what he calls “the creative's” story and the customer's cinema experience, but that’s what makes Feather a sought-after expert in this industry. Feather began his career at Texas Instruments, which in the 1990s, developed a revolutionary digital projection technology called DLP that rivaled traditional film cinema quality. “Everyone scoffed at the idea that a story could be told better with digital than film,” Feather said. “Now that’s reality.” Feather shared the impact direct view LED will have on the consumer experience and the types of content that can be created with this technology.

There are a lot of moving parts in any building, but the most noticeable is usually the interior environment. Maintaining a comfortable atmosphere makes a tremendous difference in the day-to-day for any company, but the actual maintenance can be a challenge for on-site personnel. On this MarketScale Building Management Podcast, host Sean Heath sat down with the Senior Vice President of Strategic Accounts for Service Logic, Roger Nayle. They discuss a few reasons that 3rd-party services make the most sense, the cost-benefit proposition, and the advantage that delegating maintenance responsibilities can provide. “Many times the simple task of preventative maintenance or the simple task of filter changes simply aren’t done consistently. So, having a 3rd party company do that work for them makes a lot of sense and a lot of times something they really don’t realize could cut their costs dramatically by doing consistent maintenance,” Nayle said.

This interview originally aired on MarketScales Industrial IoT Podcast. There can sometimes be a misconception that because a solution is “scalable” that it is simple to scale either up or down to fit the need. That’s not necessarily true. On the other hand, sometimes a simple solution can reveal extra benefits that were unintended. How are we seeing this idea of focused solutions impact the Industrial IoT industry and the relationships between companies and clients? On today’s podcast, host Sean Heath had a chat with the Director for PROXI, the Global Product Strategy and Design Group for Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, Milan Kocic. They discussed the rapidly growing importance of education in Industrial IoT, the challenges of separating a “trend” from “hype,” and the crucial role customers play in helping determine the actual IoT problem they want to solve. “There’s this expression that I saw that says ‘the next big thing will be a lot of little things.’ I kind of subscribe to that piece that a lot of these companies we tend to do in manufacturing have a lot of little problems,” Kocic said. “If you help them fix a lot of little problems, inevitably, you will help them fix bigger problems.”

Sometimes the way to clear up a situation is to simply make the image a bit clearer. Those metrics are different for each space. In this podcast from MarketScale Pro AV, host Sean Heath speaks with Mark McIntosh, LED & Media Specialist at PixelFLEX. They discussed the relationship between resolution and install space, the impact of average viewing distance, and how resolution can actually impact content. “I encourage anyone that is thinking about using LED at a show or using it for your corporate board rooms, or using it for an installation in your business, using it for your concert, whatever the use is; just stay close in contact with either the provider or the manufacturer of the product that you’re using, so that you know those resolutions, and you create specifically to that,” McIntosh said.

On today's podcast, Sean Heath sat down with the Senior Director of Content Creation for ALMO, Jim Nista, and Manager for Business Development, Jay Saret. They discussed the challenge that overwhelming choice brings, how clients are gaining more understanding of what they want, and the always present "christmas lights" dilemma.

On today's podcast, Sean Heath talked with Jonathon Nelson, the CEO of HACK Fund. They discussed the challenges that blockchain technology faces with regard to regulation, the flexibility that this liquid approach creates in the investor space, the massive opportunity that liquidity provides to entrepreneurs, and how world-altering a lower cost of entry can be for ALL investors. (Sean also got the distinct impression that Jonathon wants Sean to stop sending him cat photos on social media.)

The Internet of Your Commute Time for today's IoT minute, brought to you by MarketScale. The internet of things just might be able to make your daily commute a bit smoother. Yotta, a technology firm in Great Britain, is currently using specially-equipped vehicles to take laser measurements, accurate down to a nanometer, to create a working database of the exact state of road repair in the UK. The fleet of survey vehicles can connect all of the data gathered, including pavement conditions, bike paths, and even streetlights, into a database that can then be used to schedule maintenance in the most efficient way possible. This technology can not only recognize current issues that need to be addressed, it can also predict future problems, based on statistical performance data. As new assets are placed into service, they will contain sensors that will improve data gathering moving forward. The advances in technology that help our homes get smarter, might help turn our roads into a literal information highway, as well. I'm Sean Heath and this has been your IoT minute.

Time for today’s Education Technology minute, brought to you by MarketScale. The constant advancements in technology create vast opportunities to improve classrooms, but it can cause problems, too. While the creation of mass open online courses provides both students and teachers flexibility, with regard to time and location, it can suffer if the infrastructure is not able to maintain fast, consistent connectivity. In 2006, the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa, found that the existence of a national framework did not necessarily guarantee a successful environment for educational technology. After observing 9 African countries, they found that having a national policy in place is futile without a concrete plan for funding and implementation. It appears that getting the latest tech into the classrooms is only a small part of creating a stimulating and practical learning strategy. This will be just one of the many topics discussed at the 3rd edition of the Education Innovation Summit in Sandton, South Africa. I’m Sean Heath and this has been your Education Technology minute.

In this podcast from MarketScale Pro AV, PixelFLEX CMO David Venus sits down with host Sean Heath. The two discuss the perspective Venus has after working on both sides of the event curtain, breaking into the education space by working with institutions like Stanford, the satisfaction that comes from helping a client’s wild dream come to life, and the implementation nuances that accompany the new revolution in architecture.